SEPTEMBER 213 



pound apiece, were dragged in remorselessly on the 

 strong tackle, but once only did the stone placed on a 

 bight of the line fly off sharply and the whirring reel 

 betoken something important at the other end. This 

 happened when least expected. We were crossing the 

 loch to try a favourite bay on the south side ; and when 

 half-way across, where the great depth rendered such 

 an incident most unlikely, a fish struck, engines were 

 reversed, and the play began. The play was not amiss ; 

 it was lively, but it was not the dogged violence of 

 ferox. It was but a grilse of six pounds newly run, 

 which paid the penalty of an inquisitive disposition; 

 good enough for the pot; far better indeed than the 

 most corpulent ferox, but unsatisfying to nerves strung 

 for a more heroic encounter. 



Nevertheless, in spite of failure, that day will live in 

 memory long after some of more solid results have 

 faded. It was something to have been alternately 

 steeped in sunshine and slashed with innocent showers ; 

 something to have persevered in cruising at the rate 

 of three or four miles an hour without having to con- 

 sider the aching arms and backs of a labouring crew ; 

 something, when the shades began to fall and my 

 host's dinner- table was twelve miles distant, to reel up 

 the lines, turn on full steam, and race home at ten 

 miles an hour through the fragrant twilight. Then I 

 had landed occasionally to explore tempting bits of 

 woodland. The ospreys, immemorially domiciled on 

 an island at one end of the loch, have lately established 

 a new colony near the other end. They have made a 



